180 
CHANGE IN VEGETATION. 
to which the bamboo is applied, and they extract the 
best palm-wine from their base. Ferns, the Ficus, 
Mimosa, and various shrubs and bushes of small growth 
increased as we advanced above Sunday Island : and the 
ranks, which pre\dously were swampy, become somewhat 
firm ; and the eye — wearied by the melancholy and 
monotonous hue of the mangrove — is delighted to 
witness the rapidly increasing vegetation, which soon 
assumes all the dignity of the tropical forest. 
A few fishing-stakes and some small patches of 
plantains give the earliest indications of approach to the 
habitations of man. The first villages are composed of 
a very few mud huts, of a square or oblong form, with 
thatched roofs and gable ends. 
During the afternoon, some of the ‘Albert’s’ officers 
landed at a little village on the right bank, called 
Paraboli, where they met an Ibu pilot, whom they had 
seen at the mouth of the Nun. Captain Ti’otter wished 
